Retirement Watch Weekly
Social Security and Medicare Still Need Reform
The trustees issued their annual reports this week. Their projections show Medicare will be short the needed money in 2024, the same year as estimated last year, and Social Security will be in trouble in 2033, three years earlier than assumed a year ago. But those are only the official projections. The actuaries of the […]
The Next Financial Crisis
One group of analysts believes the Fed is doing the right thing by dramatically increasing its balance sheet and keeping interest rates low. Others believe the moves are creating a new set of problems. They compare the recent actions to those that caused the housing and debt bubbles in the last century. A good analysis […]
Looking for a Part-Time Job in Retirement?
Many people report that they don’t really want to retire, but they’d like to stay active with some kind of work or they need the additional money.The condition of the job market makes it difficult for many retirees or near-retirees to find the part-time job they’d like. Here’s one suggestion. Consider signing up as an […]
Causes of the Financial Crisis Summarized
There’s an ongoing debate among politically-motivated people about the causes of the bubble and ensuing financial crisis. I’ve long believed that the best summary and explanation is this brief e-book from Russell Roberts of the Mercatus Center. Roberts, being an economist, focuses on incentives. He talks about how various public policies gave people the wrong […]
The State of Retirement
Another survey of Americans in or near retirement has rolled out. This one is worth paying attention to because it’s not done by a financial services firm with an agenda to boost its business. Instead, the Society of Actuaries did another edition of a survey it’s been doing periodically for a while. The survey covers […]
Stocks Aren’t for the Long Run
Professor Robert Shiller of “irrational exuberance” fame is back making headlines, this time in an interview with Money magazine. Another of Shiller’s innovations is the Shiller P/E ratio. Instead of using forecasts of next year’s earnings, Shiller suggests using normalized earnings, which he defines as basically an average of the last 10 year’s earnings. That […]
Is a Target Date Fund for You?
The growing trend among mutual fund families and especially in 401(k) plans is the target date fund (TDF). These are asset allocation funds that assume the investors will reach retirement age at a certain year, hence the name Target Date. There’s an ongoing debate over whether the funds are good for investors. The idea is […]
The Search for Stock Market Patterns
It’s tough to identify the one mistake that is the worst or most common investors make. But my vote is the desire to identify patterns in the markets and use those to develop rules of investing. There are a few people who do this successfully. But they have very elaborate rules that take many factors […]
